IBM Laptop/Notebook Problem

Hey all.
I'm having a problem with my Laptop and I'm out of idea's so before I take it off to have it looked at, I thought I'd give a shot of using these forums, as the wealth of knowledge in here seems to vastly outweigh the guys at the shop.

Basically, The screen doesnt come on, Or freezes.
Sometimes when I switch it on, it will load up windows and I'll be able to sign in on messengers and whatnot, but then it will freeze. Sometimes when I switch it on, The fan will kick in and everything but a picture never comes on the screen, yet if I unplug it and remove the battery for a while then put them all back in. It will start up.

The last time I got it to start up, I thought, maybe rather silly of me, but i gave it a very gentle shake, this caused it to freeze.
This has all happened completley out of the blue when I was using it 2 nights ago and it froze and didnt want to work for the rest of the night.

Could this be a problem with the screen itself? Or with something else. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Sounds to me like, memory, lcd, or video card. Anyone of these could possibly be the factors. The easiest would to try to swap out memory.

I know my own computer started to crash and randomly restart when my memory went bad.

Hope this helps...

 

If you are comfortable with playing around inside your laptop

I would try reseating your memory first

You mentioned shaking it around appeared to cause the problem, this indicates to me that something may be loose.

 

Thanks very much for the tips, How would I go about resetting the memory?
I will try opening it up and looking for something loose, I've opened my PC up countless times but never the laptop.

 

Ok, as an update, I opened it up, and checked a few things to see if they were connected ok, they seemed to be but I didn't go to far in.
When I turn it on, There is one BEEP, followed then by a BEEP BEEP BEEP then a pause, BEEP BEEP BEEP, pause and repeat. Does this mean anything to anyone?

 

Need to know what laptop,or, motherboard you have to look into beeps.

 

The Laptop is an IBM Thinkpad T30

 

Memory, or system board
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-63545

 

Troubleshooting page

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-4YLR6R#posterrors

 

Reseating the memory is simply removing it
leaving it out for about a minute and then reinstalling it carefully

As baklogic posted previously
your beep code indicates
Memory or System board issues

 

Thank you all for the help so far, It's greatly appreciated.
Though after looking at the troubleshooter and having the laptop apart for as much as I dare, I cannot see any loose components or anything, I've reset the memory and everything but still to no avail, I now either get a blank screen when I turn it on, and then sometimes the Beeps. I'm completley lost at this point

 

Laptops are not my cup of tea, so I would not advise going any further.
The only thing that comes to mind, without opening the box to win the prize, is the wire connecting the screen to the main/keyboard, may have been pinched, or causing a short, when the system tries to start.
Unless someone comes on who is more conversant with Laptops, I suggest you go through the troubleshooting pages, and ,perhaps start here

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-4YQNTQ.html

 

Pages 50 to 63 of the manual will give you more idea, of where the parts are in the laptop
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/92p1840.pdf
The only suggestion I can make is to have the power supply/charger, and battery checked out to see if there is not a fault with them.:foolish

 

Thanks very much again, I'll have a look into that, When I had it open yesterday, It looked quite scary to actually get that deep into the laptop, So much more confusing than a PC, But I'll have a a thorough go this evening.

 

Good luck, Doddz
and thanks Shanemail , its good to explain things, in simple English, I appreciate it, and I am sure doddz does. We both forgot to remind doddz to wear a wrist strap, and usual antistatic precautions. Also it is handy to have the Aerosol handy to blow out dust/fluff, as long as the computer/laptop is cold.